[PW] 1970S article on study of librarians
Linda Woodbury
woodburyl at memphislibrary.org
Tue Feb 5 14:14:14 PST 2008
Does anyone remember an article in library literature in the mid-70s about a professor's experiment with the hypothesis that librarians are hostile to people outside the "norm"?
He was a psychology professor (IIRC) and sent his college students into a library exhibiting unusual behaviors. The librarians were helpful and treated them well.
He increased the oddity of the next group's behavior. Still the librarians were helpful and polite.
Finally he had students behaving in ways that could signal a dangerous personality and still the librarians went into the stacks with them to help.
He ended up lecturing librarians on the dangers of being too nice and helpful.
Thanks!
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